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Mixed
Bouquet, 2003, oil, 30 x 24. Collection the artist.
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Oil
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A Classical Approach to
Southwestern Subjects
Oil painter Kirk Richards applies his rigorous training in classical
realism to evoke a more subdued version of the Southwest.
by Linda M. Gosman
June,
2003
Intense
colors and loose brushstrokes reflect the vision of many of today's
Southwestern artists. The work of Texas figurative and
portrait painter Kirk Richards is an exception. Concentrating on sound
draftsmanship, astute color observation, composition, and harmony and balance
within the picture plane, Richards looks for ways to apply his training as a
classical realist to the images that the extreme climate of the Southwest
conjures. "I thought it would be interesting if I could adapt my
painting approach to regional subjects and present them in a manner different
from the traditional way," the artist explains.
To accomplish this without compromising his artistic ideals, Richards, with
the help of modeling clay, props, and imagination, frequently re-creates the
scene he is striving to convey in the controlled conditions of his studio.
There, using a single north-light source to illuminate his subject, the
artist captures the subtleties of form and color that define his work.
Richards created his first oil paintings at the age of 7, when he was
introduced to the medium by a babysitter. Although those informal sessions
provided little of technical value, they did introduce Richards to a lifelong
vehicle for expressing his interests and ideas. Today, his paintings,
sometimes allegorical in content, are often based on nature. "I attempt
to render natural elements as beautifully and accurately as possible,"
Richards declares.
True to his youthful passion, Richards majored in fine art in college. As an
admirer of Michelangelo and Rembrandt, he became increasingly frustrated with
the modernistic and abstract approach to art fostered by many of his
professors. "Traditions were thrown to the wind," the artist avers.
"Many people equated novelty with creativity, which was not a fair comparison.
In my art, the exploration of beauty and craft combined with creativity
matters most."
Richards completed his first year of graduate school as an art major with an
emphasis on painting. "But that's not where I learned to paint," he
contends. Instead, he traces the start of his development to the day a fellow
student brought in a 1971 issue of American Artist, featuring Minneapolis artist Richard Lack,
a follower of the Boston School of traditional
painters. "The edges on his figure work were so beautiful," Richards
recalls, "that I asked my teacher, 'How did he do that?'" The
answer would come directly from the source itself when—delighted at finding a
painter who taught in the manner of the Old Masters—Richards moved to
Minneapolis six weeks later and enrolled at Atelier Lack, the studio school
Lack founded.
Spending four years under Lack's guidance, Richards learned the disciplines
of his craft. He worked in a class of eight to 10 students, spending mornings
doing graphite or charcoal life studies and afternoons drawing and painting
plaster casts, still lifes, or portraits. "A
10-inch graphite drawing of the figure could take as long as 12 hours to
complete," Richards recalls, "and one
could spend a whole semester working on a single still life." The
structured, intense curriculum paid off for the artist. "It wasn't about
what you thought or felt," he says. "It was about learning to see
and compose with artistic sensibilities, and developing the skills necessary
to follow the traditional craft of painting." The discipline of this
training also freed him artistically. "The craft of painting is like a
vocabulary," says Richards. "With a limited one, how well can you
communicate your ideas? Prior to attending Atelier Lack, I didn't have the
tools I needed to accomplish my goals. Now, I'm only restricted by how well I
can apply my training."
After leaving the atelier, Richards returned to Texas to pursue his art as
a classical realist. That term, coined by Lack, describes a synthesis of
Impressionism and Academism: a combination of the "big
look"—minimizing unnecessary detail, reporting the subtleties of tone
and color—intertwined with the exquisite draftsmanship of the 19th-century French Academy painters. "I
look at my regional subject matter and sometimes wonder how William Paxton or
Edmund Tarbell would approach it," states
Richards.
Richards focuses primarily on painting interiors, portraits, allegorical
scenes, and still lifes. With the exception of an
occasional plein air landscape, the artist paints
in his studio, utilizing the north light from three skylights to create the
subtle variations of hue and tone that intrigue him. "I work directly
from life," he explains, "because photographs distort color and
proportion, and generally are an unsatisfactory source of information."
Depending on the complexity of his subject, Richards spends several weeks
making or selecting props, models, and costumes, and determining a strong
pose or composition. For example, in his painting Blue Corn, he set up
the model and selected the drapery to approximate the color of the wall
behind her. Then the artist built a scaled-down version of the corner of the
room, and placed the structure with its miniature shelving and pottery on the
model stand, where he could see how the shadows would fall on its life-sized
counterpart. In The Storyteller, a compelling night scene depicting a
member of the Hopi tribe, Richards built a shadowbox on his model stand and
laid a 40-watt amber spotlight at the model's feet to illuminate her face and
simulate the glow of a smoldering campfire.
Freed by his training from technical constraints, the artist discovered that
his only limitation was his imagination. For example, when composing Sins
of the Father, a religious allegorical painting, Richards fashioned a
clay snake and wrapped it around a 12-inch manikin to determine the form and
value of his subject under the same lighting conditions as the model. "A
good portion of the creativity is in the initial setup," says Richards.
Yet, some things cannot be re-created in the studio. To offset this problem,
the artist uses thumbnail and detailed sketches to plan his painting.
"If you begin with a bad arrangement and paint it beautifully," he
says, "all you'll have is a beautiful painting of a bad composition."
Once satisfied that he has a working composition, Richards is ready to paint.
He works five days a week, painting three hours at a time, morning and
afternoon, with a short break for lunch. The subject determines the canvas
size. "I like to paint life-sized if possible," he remarks. For
portraits, Richards' surface of choice is Fredrix
double-primed stretched linen or oil-primed linen. "I don't like the
texture of the canvas to impose itself on my painting, so I use a fine
weave," he adds.
For less complex portraits and simple still lifes,
Richards begins by drawing directly on canvas with paint. For more
complicated pieces, he makes a detailed study of his subject, then copies it onto tracing paper. After rubbing charcoal
on the back of the tracing, he transfers the image with a pencil onto the
canvas, then cleans up the smudgy outline, sprays it with fixative, and
paints over it when it is dry.
Richards thins his first wash with turpentine; that wash is designed to
neutralize the white of his usually untoned canvas
and establish local color. He comes back the next day and uses paint without
any medium or thinner to establish his shadow shapes. "By the end of my
second sitting, I can see my lights, darks, and highlights," he
explains. Relying on the traditional fat-over-lean approach, the artist
incrementally adds Taubes
copal medium to his pigment with each subsequent layer.
"I limit my palette to seven colors," says Richards, who has a warm
and cool of every primary hue: cadmium lemon, cadmium yellow medium, cadmium
orange, cadmium red deep, ultramarine blue, Thalo
blue, and Thio violet. He also uses flake white
and, if needed, black, to intensify the values. Preferring to work with a
fairly dry paint consistency, the artist sometimes chooses faster-drying
pigments for certain passages and for underpainting
when pressed for time. In such instances, he typically uses yellow ochre, raw
sienna, light red, Indian red, viridian, Naples yellow, and ivory
black.
Once Richards establishes the subject's major shapes, he begins each
subsequent sitting with the least developed area, bringing pictorial elements
into focus simultaneously. He paints everything in relation to his center of
interest, which always stays one step ahead in development. Generally, it takes
four skins of pigment to capture the subtle value and color nuances he seeks.
"I employ round bristle brushes for the heavier paint, and sable for the
oilier layers and finishing work," he notes.
Striving for a unified appearance in each painting, Richards allows the
compositional importance of the depicted object to determine its level of
refinement. He models each form with color, light, and shadow. He
subordinates texture and brushstrokes to the image, so that the viewer sees
the object first, then the paint.
Frequently checking his work in a mirror, Richards corrects mistakes as the
painting progresses. If the value difference in the offending area is too
great, he uses fine sandpaper to remove the color and begin again. "I
look for accuracy of painting and drawing, combined with a beautiful balance
of color, value, and form," he explains. To finish a painting, he checks
edges and restates his darkest darks and lightest lights. "There is a
point of diminishing return," he says. "When I've worked it as much
as I can, and anything more would take it backward, I know that I'm
finished." When the canvas is dry, he applies a coat of retouch varnish
to unify the painting surface. If the work is still in his studio after six
months, the artist applies a final coat of picture varnish for additional
protection.
Richards lives in Amarillo, Texas, where he operated
his own atelier from 1982 through 1988. He is the co-author with Stephen Gjertson of For Glory and for Beauty: Practical
Perspectives on Christianity and the Visual Arts (American Society of
Classical Realism, Minneapolis, Minnesota). The artist is
represented by Tree's Place Gallery in Orleans, Massachusetts. Contact the artist
by E-mail: kirkrichards@hotmail.com.
Linda M. Gosman is an artist and freelance
writer residing in Severna Park, Maryland.
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The
Tekeste Children, 1998, oil, 50 x 60.
Private collection.
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Blue
Corn, 1996, oil, 30 x 40. Collection the artist.
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Sins
of the Father, 2000, oil, 40 x 36. Collection the artist.
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The
Blue Door, 2001, oil, 36 x 24. Collection the artist.
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The
Storyteller, 1995, oil, 30 x 24. Private collection.
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